West Virginia Crash Reporting Requirements: Police, Driver, and Motor Vehicle Reports

Short answer

In West Virginia, a driver must immediately notify law enforcement after a crash involving an injury or death, or apparent total property damage of $1,000 or more. The agency to notify depends on where the crash happened: the local police department inside a municipality, or otherwise the county sheriff or nearest West Virginia State Police office. This notification is not the same thing as filing a completed crash report yourself. West Virginia Code §17C-4-6 places the notification duty on the driver; when an officer investigates a qualifying crash, the officer prepares and submits the crash report.

For a West Virginia State Police investigation, use the State Police’s official Criminal and Crash Report Request Form or call the Traffic Records Section. If another agency investigated, the West Virginia DMV says to request the record from that investigating agency.

Immediate checklist

Stop and remain at the scene. The duties to stop, exchange information, and, when applicable, render reasonable assistance are addressed in West Virginia Code §§17C-4-1 through 17C-4-3.
Notify the correct law-enforcement agency immediately if the crash involved injury, death, or apparent total property damage of $1,000 or more. Inside a municipality, contact local police; elsewhere, contact the county sheriff or the nearest West Virginia State Police office. §17C-4-6 states that rule.
Exchange or provide the required information if physically able. This includes a name, valid contact telephone number, vehicle year/make/model and last four VIN digits, plus required proof of financial responsibility and insurance details. An officer at the scene may receive and provide this information if practical. See §17C-4-3.
Record the investigating agency, date, location, and report number if available. These are the key fields on the State Police request form.
Ask for party and insurance information if an officer investigated. Within 24 hours of the crash, the investigating officer must provide owner, operator, and insurance information upon request to involved parties and their respective insurance agents, without charge, even if the full crash report is not complete. §17C-4-7(b) explains this limited information request.

Who reports what in West Virginia?

The driver: immediate notification, not the officer’s report

The driver’s statewide reporting-related duty in the reviewed crash statute is to give immediate notice by the quickest means of communication when the crash meets the injury, death, or apparent $1,000-property-damage threshold. The statute identifies the receiving agency based on location. §17C-4-6.

If the driver is physically unable to make that notification and there is another capable occupant, that occupant must make or cause the notification to be made. §17C-4-8.

The official provisions reviewed for this page do not describe a separate, routine statewide driver-to-DMV self-report form for this type of crash. Do not substitute a request for a police report for the required immediate notification.

The investigating officer: the crash report

An officer who investigates a crash on a public street or highway that results in injury, death, or apparent total property damage of $1,000 or more must prepare a crash report electronically or in writing within 24 hours after completing the investigation. The officer must submit it within 24 hours after completing the investigation to the Division of Highways, using the approved form and process. If the investigation cannot be completed within 10 days after the crash, the officer must submit a preliminary report on the tenth day and the final report within 24 hours after completing the investigation. §17C-4-7(a), (c)–(d).

The Division of Highways prepares crash-report forms and supplies them, upon request, to State Police, municipal police departments, sheriffs, the Division of Natural Resources, and other suitable agencies or individuals. The statutory report format is intended to capture crash causes, conditions, people, and vehicles, and must include information that lets the DMV Commissioner determine whether motor-vehicle security requirements are in effect. §17C-4-9. That makes the officer’s report a government crash record with a motor-vehicle/insurance-administration function; it does not make it a DMV report that a driver files after every crash.

DMV and insurance: related systems, different tasks

The West Virginia DMV says registered vehicles are subject to insurance verification, law enforcement may request proof during a crash investigation, and a report seeker should contact State Police only when State Police investigated; otherwise, contact the investigating agency. West Virginia DMV consumer insurance information. The reviewed official sources do not state a general driver crash-report form, statewide insurer-notice deadline, public-entity notice procedure, or lawsuit deadline, so none is stated here.

How to find or request the crash record

Start with the agency that investigated. This matters because West Virginia’s official DMV guidance directs report seekers by investigating agency, not through a single statewide consumer report portal.

West Virginia State Police investigated: The State Police Traffic Safety Section provides the Crash Report Request Form and lists its crash-report phone number as (304) 746-2128 on its Traffic Safety page. The form asks for the crash date, location, driver names, and crash report number if known. It lists $20 for a vehicle crash report by mail or email, and $25 for a certified vehicle crash report or a faxed vehicle crash report. Follow the form’s payment and submission instructions; it lists the Traffic Records Section’s mail address, fax, and crash-report email address.
A city police department, county sheriff, campus police department, Division of Natural Resources officer, or another agency investigated: Contact that agency’s records unit or public-records contact. The DMV expressly says that if another law-enforcement agency investigated, that agency must be contacted to obtain the report. The existence of the state crash-records database does not establish a public, statewide request portal for every individual report.
You need only party and insurance information right away: Ask the investigating officer. The officer-information provision in §17C-4-7(b) is separate from obtaining the completed crash report.

The State Police form identifies a result where no report can be found based on the information supplied and does not state a report-release waiting period. If you do not know the investigating agency, begin with the agency that responded at the scene.

Documents and identifiers to gather

Before making a request, collect the details that match the official request form and help the agency locate the record:

crash date and approximate time;
precise location, including road, intersection, municipality, or county;
names of the drivers involved;
crash report number, incident number, or responding officer information, if provided;
the investigating agency’s name; and
your mailing address, email address, and a payment method accepted on the State Police form if requesting a State Police record.

Keep your own photos, correspondence, and copies of information exchanged at the scene separately. They may help identify a record, but they are not the investigating officer’s crash report.

If the report is unavailable or is held elsewhere

A report request can fail because the agency cannot locate a record from the details provided, or because the request went to an agency that did not investigate. Confirm the date, location, names, and investigating agency, then make the request to the correct records custodian.

For a public-record request to a West Virginia public body, the West Virginia Freedom of Information Act says the request must go directly to the record’s custodian and state the information sought with reasonable specificity. Unless another statute provides otherwise, the custodian must, as soon as practicable and no later than five business days excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays, provide copies, set a time and place for inspection/copying, or deny the request in writing with reasons. The statute allows actual reproduction costs but not search or retrieval charges based on staff time. Records can also be subject to statutory exemptions, including certain law-enforcement and personal-information records. §29B-1-4.

A FOIA request does not change the DMV’s practical instruction: when a non-State-Police agency investigated, ask that agency for its report. State Police request procedures, fees, and contact details apply to State Police crash reports, not automatically to reports created by another department.

Official resources

For next steps after a crash, see what to do after a car accident and the car-accident evidence checklist.